hers both with words and deeds. His chief profession
was sculpture, yet he worked with great delicacy in terra-cotta, in
a very good and beautiful manner. But not being able to endure that
any one should surpass him, he would set himself to spoil with his
hands such of the works of others as showed an excellence that he
could not achieve with his brain; and if these others resented this,
he often had recourse to something stronger than words. He had a
particular hatred for Michelagnolo, for no other reason than that he
saw him attending zealously to the study of art, and knew that he
used to draw in secret at his own house by night and on feast-days,
so that he came to succeed better in the garden than all the others,
and was therefore much favoured by Lorenzo the Magnificent.
Wherefore, moved by bitter envy, Torrigiano was always seeking to
affront him, both in word and deed; and one day, having come to
blows, Torrigiano struck Michelagnolo so hard on the nose with his
fist, that he broke it, insomuch that Michelagnolo had his nose
flattened for the rest of his life. This matter becoming known to
Lorenzo, he was so enraged that Torrigiano, if he had not fled from
Florence, would have suffered some heavy punishment.

[Illustration: TOMB OF HENRY VII

(_After_ Torrigiano. _London: Westminster Abbey_)

_Mansell_]

Having therefore made his way to Rome, where Alexander VI was then
pressing on the work of the Borgia Tower, Torrigiano executed in it
a great quantity of stucco-work, in company with other masters.
Afterwards, money being offered in the service of Duke Valentino,
who was making war against the people of Romagna, Torrigiano was
led away by certain young Florentines; and, having changed himself
in a moment from a sculptor to a soldier, he bore himself valiantly
in those campaigns of Romagna. He did the same under Paolo Vitelli
in the war with Pisa; and he was with Piero de' Medici at the action
on the Garigliano, where he won the right to arms, and the name of a
valiant standard-bearer.

But in the end, recognizing that he was never likely to reach the
rank of captain that he desired, although he deserved it, and that
he had saved nothing in the wars, and had, on the contrary, wasted
his time, he returned to sculpture. For certain Florentine
merchants, then, he made small works in marble and bronze, little
figures, which are scattered throughout the houses of citizens in
Florence, and he executed many draw